ITA Regional Roundup

I-T-Cross!

The 2014 ITA Fall Northeast Regional is in the books after 3 days of sunny 80 degree weather and wonderful tennis to match. First off, big thanks to the parents who came out to support us, a fantastic Midd fan presence was felt!

Senior leadership 

While there wasn’t a Panther winner in the singles or doubles, there were certainly results to be proud of and to learn from. With a commitment to controlling points with his forehand and using his serve aggressively, Jackson Frons reeled of 4 straight wins to reach the semi-finals of the singles draw before falling to a tough Wesleyan opponent. It’s promising to see various guys take jumps in their level and lead the way.

The man around town

Ari Smolyar blew through two rounds of competition to reach the second day in the singles tournament. Ari fell just short of a quarterfinal berth after holding 3 match points against Bates’ top player. We’re convinced, with a bit more match and mental experience, Ari will put the finishing touches on matches like these in the future.

Noah won 3 convincing matches en-route to the quarterfinals, keeping up his high level of play from the Midd Invite.

In doubles we used the tournament as another testing round to experiment with different combinations as we have many excellent options for doubles teams; each of our 3 teams in the draw won their first round matchups.   

Courtney 'game face' Mountifield

One highlight in doubles action was the last match played on Saturday night, which was moved indoors to Nelson because of light. Ari and Courtney faced off against the Bates team who went on to win the tournament. Even though Ari and Courtney were defeated, we showed our Panther pride by having the entire team on the sidelines out-cheering the Bates team well into a Saturday evening.

Pete leaning...hard

Since the tournament ended, we have been thinking of ways to improve and gain ground on these teams before we see many of them again in the spring. With the right training, both physical and mental, we hope to build ourselves and add layers of offense to our games before the dual match season.

Next up is the Bates Invite tournament the weekend of October 11^th. We’re feeling great about our fall season schedule in having a tournament every other weekend, giving us time to reload and work on parts of our games before the next round of competition.

Thanks and GO MIDD!